Tag: ‘car’
Thursday, June 24th, 2010
So what has happened?
Well, England has been doing crap in the world cup.
We have a new member in our crew, Bex. Malcolm knows her from when he was young and she turned up in her pumped out camper van. Awesome girl it’s great to have her with us.
It was her birthday the day she arrived, so we had a bit of a party.
Alan called to say that there was no way he could register or sell the car without me going to the DMV myself. And as we start work next week for the summer, it meant I had to go to LA right away. So with flights at over $400 it made more sense to think about driving. So I proposed this to the guys, and malcolm’s smile literally went ear to ear and I know it was road trip time.
What with alan leaving for Mexico I asked him to wait til tuesday so we could go to the DMV together. We rose early Sunday morning, packed a bit of stuff into the car and made for the border.
It turns out that you can’t bring peppers, oranges, mangos, jalapeños or onions into the states, but they let us eat them, the nicest border guards ever, and we were on our way.
Fast forward 25 hours later, 3 Taco Bells, 2 Subways and 1200 miles and we arrived into LA Monday morning and went to the beach.
Twice now I’ve said goodbye to alan and the guys, only to randomly find them again, so we hooked up.
I have to say that the American DMV and the whole buracratic system is bullshit. Waiting for and hour and a half to get a ticket to wait another 45 minutes, to be told very rudely that we couldn’t pay with a foreign card, to then get cash and wait some more is crap. In Britain most stuff can be done online and saves so much time and governmental money, it makes the US system so stupid.
However we finally got the plates and we will hopefully never have to do it again.
That meant mission successful, and time to enjoy California 
That night we four partied in Venice beach and slept in the car.
The next day we did a little shopping and headed to a side of the city i’ve never seen to meet malcolm’s mate who just got back from a year in OZ. He’s a photographer, graphic designer and musician and showed us some cool sites up in the hills, and we did the touristy thing walking up and down sunset strip and a cheapo Mexican eat.
We ended up at the band rooms and killed the car battery so had a car park party with all the musicians, and this guy who is the producer for Queen, Smashing Pumpkins and a whole load more bands I’ve forgotten, oh yeh the Darkness too.
So after two hours trying to jump start the car, a call to AAA we got off and headed back down towards the beach, via the Internet cafe, sport shop to exchange bex’s skateboard and done shopping we finally made it to Venice beach again.
It’s getting cool, Im super exhausted but I’ll go and have dinner with gunnar and then we have some party in Hollywood to go to.
Life is beautiful. Time to throw the frisbee about.
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Tags: america, beach, border, california, camera, canada, car, dmv, drive, frisbee, fruit, hollywood, l.a., la, long, los angeles, mulholland drive, ocean, party, photo, photograph, roadtrip, usa, veg, venice, wave
Posted in Canada summer '10 | No Comments »
Wednesday, March 31st, 2010
i’ve just about finished my work as a ski/snowboard instructor. it’s been great, i’ve spent sooo much time on the mountain, had some great experiences, met some great people, learned a lot.
i’ve progressed to level 2 snowboard instructor and level 1 ski, and will take my snowboard freestyle course in a couple of weeks, so i’m working my way up nicely.
i’m pretty exhausted and so im resting up a bit this week, even though it has been snowing, i’d rather rest up than tire myself out more, there is still 2 months of riding left before the lifts close!
so i have to job hunt now, need money.
so photos i’ve been uploading from my travels in the past year:
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Tags: athens, budapest, canada, car, cow, czech, danube, dog, fight, grass, greece, hungary, ice, instructor, job, la vie, lady, light, mini, money, new, old, photo, photograph, photography, prague, river, silhouette, ski, skoda, snow, snowboard, stream, sun, sunset, tortoise, travel, turtle, water, woman, work
Posted in canada winter 09/10, la vie | No Comments »
Saturday, December 12th, 2009
I think it been a long time again. I’m sat in the restaurant at lake louise having some lunch. I’m on a pre course level the snowboard instructor level 2. I think I’m becoming accustomed to the cold a little, yesterday it was -10 and felt almost warm! Monday they couldn’t even open the lifts because it’s was over thirty below. People say this is freak cold for this early in winter, but so good for getting used to it. I tend to lose feeling in my toes after twenty minutes outside, and frostbite comes in around ten.
So it hasn’t snowed in a while, just nice and sunny, the sun not feeling warm. But everybody is waiting for the next snow, after all snow is what we came for.
After being here around 5 weeks, alan and I finally have a place to move into, so that’ll end my almost 8 months of homelessness. It’s unfurnished so were trying to find our furniture online at no cost. It’s been done, so doable. I can’t wait to have a home.
So we decide to stay here for the winter, and have season passes for the local hills, so we are totally committed to Banff, expensive as it is.
I have a definately job lined up for January onwards, but only part time, so I’m still looking. But instructing is what I’ve been working towards, so excited!
Most of the time here is spent cold, on the snow, drinking, eating, and having lots of fun meeting new people.
Oh and one bad thing, I failed my level 1 for ski instructing. I passed the teaching but failed the technical skiing. It was pretty ambitious taking the course having barely skied In ten years. So there is a another course next week so I have to get practicing, and make sure I pass this time.
I guess last thing is ???
Photos; cheese, dice and drinks, bingo, robs new car, elk in town, more bingo, me riding, circular rainbow and my leg bruise after landing on a tree
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Tags: american, banff, bingo, canada, car, cold, course, fail, instructor, party, photo, photograph, ski, snow, snowboard, winter
Posted in canada winter 09/10, la vie | No Comments »
Monday, November 9th, 2009
So we’re in calgary and our odometer shows a figure of 175,000 which means we’ve driven ten thousand miles around north America!
ok so i just tried to make the route in google maps, and google maps couldn’t manage it, it found it too big and the page crashed, wicked google!
i have had enough driving for now, and we’re only 1,700 miles from where we started in Los Angeles, but we did take the scenic route, which has been great fun. i don’t think i need to recap here, as everything we have done is down below in this blog. i just have to show some photos!
i’m sat in some dingy econolodge, the radiator wouldn’t turn off, so we have the air conditioning on, don’t tell the environment, but somebody has removed all radiator controls, and the only other option was to sleep with the door open, but maybe the -4 outside would make it too chilly in here.
alan’s just woken now, so i guess time to do stuff.
regina was cool, we had no number or address for the guy who we were staying with, but we did know where he worked, and it all worked out as we arrived when he did, and he even got the night off. so we went and had dinner and saw some bars, alan picked up this pretty but really stupid girl and well it was fun.
yesterday we headed off out on the road for what was the hardest, most boring drive of the trip. we had 500 miles on prairie lands to cross. we had to do all we could to keep from passing out while driving. this involved absolutely horrible music, throwing grapes out of the window to have them crash on the front of the car and general being annoying to each other, but we made it here to calgary to drive past a bar showing the kiwi’s playing wales on tv.
so rugby, pie mac and cheese and a pint made for a nice finish to the day.
there seem to be a noticable number of english, ozzy and kiwi people around here, and i guess it’s the close proximity to the snowy mountains.
so alan has to goto customs and beg for his ski bag to be released and then off we go to banff, can’t wait, mountains, snow, and the lifts open wednesday!!!
photos: alan trying to play patience in the car, our greek breakfast yesterday and the nothingness expanse we drove across yesterday. i notice the iphone photos aren’t great quality, buggar!
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Tags: alberta, beer, boring, calgary, canada, car, cards, couchsurfing, dinner, drink, drive, english, food, fun, game, gay, girl, greek, kiwi, party, photo, prairie, pretty, regina, rugby, saskatchewan, stupid, tired, wales
Posted in US road trip autumn 09, la vie | No Comments »
Saturday, November 7th, 2009
Alan and I have just been to the mall in Winnipeg, narrowly escaping the busyness. I bought a cover for my iPhone because I have seen so many iPhones with smashed screens. I went for the recycled plastic option. We also got some thermals, it’s going to be a cold winter.
So winnipeg was interesting. Out couchhost was a fun girl, plenty of time having recently been made redundant, along with most of her crazy friends but we spent most of the time partying, there isn’t much else to do in that town. It is the grain trading capital of north America.
And the people there are crazy, many of whom walk around making wierd sounds, screaming or talking to themselves. There’s too much winter, no excitement or hope, not even any population growth, the gun crime capital of Canada so we are told.
So we are now in the real prairies, you can see for miles and miles, forward the road dissappears on straight to the horizon and to the sides are endless yellow field where crops grew in the summer.
It’s so straight and boring that they have giant signs to keep you mind active like odometer checks. But no worries if you fall off the road asleep, there’s nothing to hit.
It’s barely above zero degrees and they’re still harvesting.
So wawa was no too interesting, lots of goose statues.
Thunder bay, out host wasn’t too talkative until we got him a bit drunk, and he hit on us.
So the most important thing we did was go to an employment centre to canadianise our resumes. We’ve applied for several jobs now. Not much response yet.
The car is super dirty because I decided to do some off roading just to wake me up from the boring drive.
Oh and I got myself a lovely yellow hat, mmm warm
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Tags: beer, boring, busy, buy, canada, canadian, car, cold, crazy, dirt, drive, fun, goose, hat, inuit, mall, party, photo, red, river, road, shop, snow, talk, tired, tower, trip, walk, wierd, wine, yellow
Posted in US road trip autumn 09, la vie | No Comments »
Sunday, October 11th, 2009
Nouvelle Orleans.
It’s interesting to say the least. The experience thus far has been great, almost overwhelming.
So we drove through the back roads, swamps, alligators, needing the toilet like no other day. We drove the most zig zag route into here in search of interest.
Our host is intriguing, involved in politics here, half Jewish, half catholic, half Italian, totally American and gay. I/we haven’t had so many/strong discussions that aren’t bullshit in a long time, well as brothers, ever.
We’ve had a great tour of town, and local beers, and some else.
We watched a football game, on TVs. We had a bar crawl, being that each bar that we went to wasn’t fun enough for supporting the local college team. We met people, well Vincenzo knows everybody in town. We met the bucket man, who sang alan and I a sang inside a bucket!
In the end we came back home, I guess at 11pm ish to cook gumbo, and for me, pasta. The other couchsurfer came back from being musical, and together we chatted away while cooking failed. But we drank the chili wine. We chatted about life and Krishna, and lucid dreaming, and ioraska(maybe I can’t spell that), and katrina, and new Orleans, and now everybody is laying to sleep in the dark but me.
I think it’s time, gone five hours of cooking, eating and chatting to meet the zzzzz’s
Tags: beer, car, chat, city, conversation, cooking, culture, dreaming, drive, food, gumbo, local, louisiana, music, new orleans, pasta, road trip, spirit, sport, support, swamp, talk, toilet, tour, tv, usa, walk, watch, water
Posted in US road trip autumn 09, la vie | No Comments »
Tuesday, September 29th, 2009
Up to you.
It’s late and I’m trying to wait as late as possible before going to sleep. I have a Super thin sleeping bag, no pillow and no roll-mat/matress so it could be as uncomfortable as when we slept in yosemite. A few beers and thirty odd rounds of rummy and I don’t quite feel ready for this.
Today has been cool, so cool that it didn’t sink in until it was over.
So to start off we sent sone post and bought breakfast, uneventful, buuut then we went to drive and again the car wouldn’t turn over. Luckily enough the only garage in town was 2 doors down so we mosied on over to get a jump, and change of battery, lovely mechanic, red neck but friendly. He was even doing up an English taxi from 1960, pretty cool. So now we shouldn’t, hopefully, have and more car worries.
After that drama was over we drove up to Grand Canyon national park, and did the touristy stuff, photographs, rock hopping n yeh, got sick of it, and we drove south.
We enjoyed the sunset over Sedona, magical.
So now to camping and getting to sleep.
Tags: arizona, battery, beautiful, camp, car, cold, desert, drive, eat, energy, good, grand canyon, photo, red, road trip, rock, sedona, sunset, tent, trouble, usa
Posted in US road trip autumn 09, la vie | No Comments »
Saturday, September 19th, 2009
Not quite but it’s been a fun night.
We’ve just been to a ball game. My first time, I’ve just about learned baseball. And it wasn’t quite perfect, the LA Dodgers lost, to the San Francisco Giants, but there was a firework display afterwards. It’s interesting, like cricket, long, slowish, basically junk food, beer and stuff.
So yesterday we decided upon a car, if you can consider something of that size a car. We have bought a Chevrolet Suburban. It’s enormous, five and a half litre engine, comfortably seats seven people, or for us two and our ski/board gear. It’s a big black gas guzzling monster, and it’s awesome! We had trouble with insurance, but a nice Italian lady on a phone helped a lot after I had a nice chat with her.
So we’re set to start cruising, off into the world we go tomorrow.
Oh and we went shopping down Melrose avenue, never got what we were after but did get stuff and some good burgers.
Tags: baseball, big, black, burger, car, chevrolet, chevvy, dodgers, giants, insurance, italian, la, los angeles, melrose, shop, usa, v8
Posted in US road trip autumn 09, la vie | No Comments »
Thursday, September 17th, 2009
Super tired, jet lagged still I suppose.
Breakfast included orange juice made from oranges picked from the tree in the garden no longer than twenty minutes earlier, couldn’t be much fresher or yummier!
Today alan, gunnar and I have been driving around from city to city in Los Angeles. We were on the road nine hours, and have had some experiences. The car sales men, and even nice ladies seem to have no clu about cars, being incapable or unwilling to explain issues like such as why the 4 wheel drive or air conditioning doesn’t work, or even being unable to speak English. So there has been one promising Chevrolet Yukon. We’ll have to see what options there are tomorrow.
The flight was long, yum food, plenty o’ booze and films; Star trek, Fast and furious, Fifty dead men walking and Terminator salvation. I’d say watch star trek, but the best was the indi Irish film, fifty dead men walking, so find it and watch it.
It’s cool to be back in the sun, and it still hasn’t hit in that we’re on holiday, let alone left Europe for who knows long. I guess this is just life.
And Connie and Gunnar are lovely.
Who wants to walk the great wall of china with me?
Time for a barbie.
Tags: america, auto, buy, california, car, champagne, chevrolet, china, drive, film, flight, fly, food, gm, great wall, irish, jet, l.a., la, lag, los angeles, movie, new zealand air, plane, suburban, tahoe, wine, yukon
Posted in la vie | No Comments »
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